"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing" By Konstantin Josef Jireček, a Czech historian, diplomat and slavist.

The face-to-face meeting in Juba between President kiir and Dr. Riek Machar has done nothing to break the political deadlock in South Sudan.

Peter Adwok Nyaba, Juba, South Sudan

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019

Thursday,
September 12, 2019 (PW) — The arrival in
Juba on Monday 9 September, 2019 of Dr. Riek Machar at the head of 69-man
delegation, and his meeting with President Salva Kiir did nothing either to
break the ice, as observers of the situation expected, or add any value to the
work of his Advance Team. If anything, the visit spurred bad memories of the
July 2016 fighting in J1, it raised the political temperament to complicate
their chemistry of the two men, and indeed clogged the gears of the R-ARCISS
implementation machinery.

Travelling with such a huge delegation with his security
guarantor, Mohammed Daglo (Hemiti), who was in Juba on an entirely different
mission, Dr. Riek Machar spent three days and returned to Khartoum on Thursday.
He had an agenda-less meeting with President Salva Kiir on Wednesday. To
observant spectator, the face to face meeting was more of a public relations
stint than anything serious warranted by the gravity of the political situation
in South Sudan. This is gleaned from the casual and informal the two leaders
constituted a committee to follow up on the issues they failed to address. It
is not clear whether that unnamed committee would play the role of National
Pre-Transitional Commissions.

The visit is typical of Dr. Riek Machar, who always like to
play it alone bi-laterally with President Salva. He did it in 2016
short-circuiting the other political leaders to ARCISS namely Deng Alor Kuol of
the SPLM Political Leaders Former Detainees, and Dr. Lam Akol leader of the
National Alliance. This short-circuiting ended up in the J1 fighting. The
revitalized agreement on the resolution of the conflict in South Sudan
(R-ARCISS) brought together the governing coalition in the Republic of South
Sudan (GRSS), the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition
(SPLM/A-IO) and a conglomeration of political and armed opposition groups under
the rubrics of South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) as well as the SPLM FDs,
to stop the war.

The eight-months pre-transitional period stipulated in the
R-ARCISS expired without change in the political and military situation. The
SPLM/A-IO on insistence of Dr. Riek Machar requested a six-months extension
until 12 November. It is about eight-weeks to the formation of the revitalized
transitional government of national unity (R-TGoNU) and the institutional order
has not yet been perfected. The sticking points have been the cantonment
of troops, proposed joint training of the eighty-three thousand strong national
army, the question of the states and the national security law.

These are cardinal issues that required not just the two
leaders to thrash, but required all the signatories to the R-ARCISS. Not only
that, it also required, in addition, a shift in the political thinking away
from what characterized South Sudan before the eruption of conflict in December
2013, which viewed everything in terms of personalized power and
self-aggrandisement at the expense of provision of social and economic
development.

If Dr. Riek Machar cared about peace in South Sudan, he
should have accepted to come with the President immediately after the Papal
foot-kissing in April 2019. He developed cold feet on account of his personal
security. Now, he garnered courage to accompany Hemiti to Juba with a huge
delegation, some of them dead woods, oblivious of its implication in an austere
economic environment in South Sudan – what Charles Dickens would call hard
times.

The only viable manner Dr. Riek Machar could serve and save
the people of South Sudan, was to temporarily abdicate the leadership of the
SPLM/A-IO and hand over authority to his deputy Hon. Henry Odwar. This will
ease the already tensile political environment in South Sudan. I can vouch that
Ngundeng’s prophesy-inspired Riek Machar power ambitions have stalled. His
visit to Juba has not created a new situation more than what his Advance Team
has achieved so far. I believe another SPLM/A-IO leader other than Dr. Riek
might engage President Salva Kiir in a manner that can ensure peace and
stability.

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